Bible Commentaries

Jahve is called the Rock of our salvation (as in Psalm 89:27,cf. Psalm 94:22) as being its firm and sure ground. Visiting the house of God, onecomes before God's face; קדּם פּני, praeoccupare faciemisequivalent to visere(visitare). תּודה is not confessio peccatibutlaudisThe Beth before תודה is the Beth of accompaniment, as inMicah 6:6; that before זמרות (according to 2 Samuel 23:1 a name forpsalms, whilst מזמר can only be used as a technical expression) is the Beth of the medium.

The adorableness of God receives a threefold confirmation: He is exaltedabove all gods as King, above all things as Creator, and above His peopleas Shepherd and Leader. אלהים (gods) here, as in Psalm 96:4.,Psalm 97:7, Psalm 97:9, and frequently, are the powers of the natural world and of theworld of men, which the Gentiles deify and call kings (as Moloch Molech,the deified fire), which, however, all stand under the lordship of Jahve,who is infinitely exalted above everything that is otherwise called god(Psalm 96:4; Psalm 97:9). The supposition that תּועפות הרים denotes the pit-works (ìå) of the mountains (Böttcher), is atonce improbable, because to all appearance it is intended to be theantithesis to מחקרי־ארץ, the shafts of the earth. Thederivation from ועף (יעף), êáêïðéáalsodoes not suit תועפות in Numbers 23:22; Numbers 24:8, for “fatigues” and“indefatigableness” are notions that lie very wide apart. The כּסף תּועפות of Job 22:25 might more readily beexplained according to this “silver of fatigues,” i.e., silver that the fatiguinglabour of mining brings to light, and תועפות הרים in the passage before us,with Gussetius, Geier, and Hengstenberg: cacumina montium quia defatigantur qui eo ascenduntprop. ascendings = summits of themountains, after which כסף תועפות, Job 22:25, might also signify “silverof the mountain-heights.” But the lxx, which renders äïin thepassages in Numbers and ôáõôùïinthe passage before us, leads one to a more correct track. The verb יעף (ועף), transposed from יפע (ופע), goes back to the root יף,וף, to stand forth, tower above, to be high, according to which תועפות =תופעות signifies eminentiaei.e., towerings = summits, or prominences =high (the highest) perfection (vid., on Job 22:25). In the passage before us it is a synonym of the Arabic (mı̂fan), (mı̂fâtun), parsterrae eminens (from Arab. (wfâ) = יפע, prop. instrumentally: a means ofrising above, viz., by climbing), and of the names of eminences derivedfrom Arab. (yf') (after which Hitzig renders: the teeth of the mountains). Byreason of the fact that Jahve is the Owner (cf. 1 Samuel 2:8), because theCreator of all things, the call to worship, which concerns no one so nearlyas it does Israel, the people, which before other peoples is Jahve's creation, viz., the creation of His miraculously mighty grace, is repeated. In the call or invitation, השׁתּחוה signifies to stretch one's self out full length upon the ground, the proper attitude of adoration; כּרע, to curtsey, to totter; and בּרך, Arabic (baraka), starting from the radical signification flectere, to kneel down, in genua ( πρόχνυ , pronum = procnum) procumbere, 2 Chronicles 6:13 (cf. Hölemann, Bibelstudien, i. 135f.). Beside עם מרעיתו, people of His pasture, צאן ידו is not the flock formed by His creating hand (Augustine: (ipse) (gratiâ) (suâ) nos (oves) (fecit)), but, after Genesis 30:35, the flock under His protection, the flock led and defended by His skilful, powerful hand. Böttcher renders: flock of His charge; but יד in this sense (Jeremiah 6:3) signifies only a place, and “flock of His place” would be poetry and prose in one figure.

The second decastich begins in the midst of the Masoretic Psalm 95:7. Up to thispoint the church stirs itself up to a worshipping appearing before its God;now the voice of God (Hebrews 4:7), earnestly admonishing, meets it,resounding from out of the sanctuary. Since שׁמע בּ signifies notmerely to hear, but to hear obediently, Psalm 95:7 cannot be a conditioningprotasis to what follows. Hengstenberg wishes to supply the apodosis:“then will He bless you, His people;” but אם in other instances too(Psalm 81:9; Psalm 139:19; Proverbs 24:11), like לוּ, has an optativesignification, which it certainly has gained by a suppression of apromissory apodosis, but yet without the genius of the language havingany such in mind in every instance. The word היּום placed firstgives prominence to the present, in which this call to obedience goes forth,as a decisive turning-point. The divine voice warningly calls to mind the self-hardening of Israel, whichcame to light at Merîbah, on the day of Massah. What is referred to, asalso in Psalm 81:8, is the tempting of God in the second year of the Exodus onaccount of the failing of water in the neighbourhood of Horeb, at the placewhich is for this reason called (Massah) (u-(Merı̂bah) (Exodus 17:1-7); from which is to be distinguished the tempting of God in the fortieth year of the Exodus at (Merı̂bah), viz., at the waters of contention near Kadesh (written fully (Mê) -(Merı̂bah) (Kadesh), or more briefly (Mê) -(Merı̂bah)), Numbers 20:2-13 (cf. on Psalm 78:20). Strictly כמריבה signifies nothing but (instar) (Meribae), as in Psalm 83:10 (instar) (Midianitarum); but according to the sense, כּ is equivalent to כּעל. Psalm 106:32, just as כּיום is equivalent to כּביום. On אשׁר, quum, cf. Deuteronomy 11:6. The meaning of גּם־ראוּ פעלי is not they also (גם as in Psalm 52:7) saw His work; for the reference to the giving of water out of the rock would give a thought that is devoid of purpose here, and the assertion is too indefinite for it to be understood of the judgment upon those who tempted God (Hupfeld and Hitzig). It is therefore rather to be rendered: notwithstanding (ho'moos, Ew. §354, a) they had (= although they had, cf. גם in Isaiah 49:15) seen His work (His wondrous guiding and governing), and might therefore be sure that He would not suffer them to be destroyed. The verb קוּט coincides with κοτέω, κότος . בּדּור .ען, for which the lxx has τῇ γενεᾷ ἐκείνη , is anarthrous in order that the notion may be conceived of more qualitatively than relatively: with a (whole) generation. With ואמר Jahve calls to mind the repeated declarations of His vexation concerning their heart, which was always inclined towards error which leads to destruction - declarations, however, which bore no fruit. Just this ineffectiveness of His indignation had as its result that (אשׁר, not ὅτι but ὥστε , as in Genesis 13:16; Deuteronomy 28:27, Deuteronomy 28:51; 2 Kings 9:37, and frequently) He sware, etc. (אם = verily not, Gesen. §155, 2, f, with the emphatic future form in ûn which follows). It is the oath in Numbers 14:27. that is meant. The older generation died in the desert, and therefore lost the entering into the rest of God, by reason of their disobedience. If now, many centuries after Moses, they are invited in the Davidic Psalter to submissive adoration of Jahve, with the significant call: “To-day if ye will hearken to His voice!” and with a reference to the warning example of the fathers, the obedience of faith, now as formerly, has therefore to look forward to the gracious reward of entering into God's rest, which the disobedient at that time lost; and the taking possession of Canaan was, therefore, not as yet the final מנוּחה (Deuteronomy 12:9). This is the connection of the wider train of thought which to the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews Hebrews 3:1, Hebrews 4:1, follows from this text of the Psalm.